Karma, Mind and Health
Written and published by Kris Zurek on: 29 Mar 2016
You probably are familiar with the ancient axiom of ‘What You Saw, You Shall Reap’. This truth is not only ancient but eternally relevant. This teaching became famous due to Jesus Christ also known as Yeshua Ha Massiah. But what some of you might not know is that this phrase is not merely a metaphysical or spiritual concept limited to some archaic philosophy, but in fact it is a scientific description of the fundamental law of physics of ‘Cause and Effect’. Everything has its cause, and every cause has its effect. This is also known in Far East as the Law of Karma.
Due to this law everything in the Universe has its place, destination and function. Due to this law life finds its expression. … Surely this must also apply to you and me, to us all. The shape, type and condition of our body, birth, death, and recycling of the soul, all are governed by it. Our health or a lack of it is a reflection of our thoughts, words and actions. This is all karma. If that is so, wouldn’t it be important to become a bit more familiar with its mechanics and lessons? … Surely, all of us want to be happy, but can we really be if we remain blind to the fact how we co-create our own reality and the way how we perceive that reality” – Kris Zurek
Charaka Samhita is the ancient text of Ayurvedic literature from India describing the phenomena of life and health. This old age science was passed orally for thousands of years from master to disciple, from Guru to Chela. Than later when our capacity to remember was diminished, it was written down for posterity.
The Chapter 22 of Charaka Samhita is known as ‘Karma and Health … Karma and Mind’. I have quoted it here because of its relevance. Please read with open mind and refrain from any judgments. This text is for contemplation. Take in what resonates with you, the rest shelve for later for a right time, when you will be ready to comprehend a deeper meaning and integrate into your life as a beacon of wisdom.
Chapter 22 of Charaka Samhita
“Wounds, burns cuts etc are the disease that occur due to dis-orientation of the mind. Ayurveda believes that any type of wound or ailment is a result of our past karma.
Comment:
[Karma is about the work you do to others and thoughts you keep in the mind. If you do not keep good thoughts and indulge into wrong activities it pollutes your mind and intellect. One who steals feels guilty in the sub conscious mind.]”
Imbalance in the mind
Pride, envy, grief, fear, anger, selfishness and false identification with ego etc are all impurities of the delusional mind that occur because of our own previous bad karma.
All these impurities/and delusions lock the mind into vicious cycle and no doubt impact the quality of life and health .
For example the improperly channeled or suppressed anger can be severely damaging. Copious amounts of corrosive cortisol are released into bloodstream, causing havoc in our system over long period of time. One of the long term effects is loss of mental function and memory.
Buddha once said that the anger is like a coal. Before you throw it at somebody, it will burn your own hand.
The way we think impacts a big deal on what we would become. Of course this takes time. The karma of our thought/thoughts might not manifest immediatelly, but may require time to mature. The harvest of our own thoughts is always in our body.
The impurities and distortions and corruptions in the mind cause to create harmful chemicals in the body and lead to ailments and eventually result in premature death of physical vehicle. Did you know that each and every though creates a chemical reaction in your body. Any given thought pattern can empower you or weaken you, liberate you or enslave you, can support your health and vitality or deplete you.
There is a lie detector machine which records the changes in the heart beat and pulse rate whenever a person tells a lie.
This text is a perfect testimony to the fact that our emotions and feelings impacts the way our body would work. Any medical system that ignores this fact is incomplete.
Ayurvedas and other vedas put a lot of emphasis on good karma and also warn of the consequences of the opposite.
Karma is not just some kind of religious fiction but an exact science. Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
One must strive to keep himself free from the worries and engage into goodkarma. One can learn to identify between good and bad by reading vedas. Vedas are the science of life, about its origin and how it would sustain.
Everything described in Vedas is a complete science and there is almost no fiction. It contains logic and it is ever evolving. It is hence one of the best religious/spiritual and scientific texts available to mankind.
KARMA AND AYURVEDA
Author: MITCHELL G WEISS
Harvard Medical School, Department of Social Medicines and Health Policy Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Hospital
Fragment of the Paper presented to the International Conference on Traditional Asian Medicine, Canberra, Australia, (1979) Received: 14 March 1986 Accepted: 20 July, 1986
“… Belief in the role of Karma explains a variety of Phenomena in India. For a traditional medical system such as Ayurveda, the conflict between simultaneously held beliefs in fatalism and the efficacy of medical interventions poses an interesting dilemma that the tradition has taken pains to consider.
Caraka Samhita discusses the role of karma as a determinant of the qualities and personality of the individual, lifespan, etiology of illness, and otherwise personality of the individual, lifespan, etiology of illness, and otherwise incomprehensible epidemics. Such speculations produce practical solutions to the dilemma, and these solutions in turn enhance the medical doctrine.
“… According to Atreya Punarvasu, the sage who articulates the oldest strata of the medical doctrine in Caraka Samhita, there are three kinds of karma: the weak from hina is overcome by individual action, the strong form (uttama) overcomes individual action, and there is also a middle form (Madhya) (Car 3.3.31, 33 – 34).
“… The Classical treatises of Ayurveda also consider the influence of karma in chapters concerned with development of the embryo during gestations and the process of its becoming a person with a distinct personality. One finds a degree of tension between the influence of actions in previous incarnations of the person whom the fetus will become and actions of the expectant parents that may influence the sex, character and health of their child.
Illness and Karma in Ayurveda According to Charaka Samhita
“… All illnesses can be attributed either to endogenous factors (nija) (i.e. an imbalance of the three humors (dosa) or exogenous factors (agantu). The latter group ultimately refers to violations of good sense (prajnaparadha). Ayurveda infers that karma also plays a critical role from the special features of an atypical illness or the course of an illness that is resistant to treatment (Car 4.1.1.98, 116 – 117).
By invoking karma, the medical system preserves the integrity of its theory and the validity of a revealed doctrine even in the face of admitted failure to heal certain patients. This device is useful, for it enables Ayurveda to draw upon those philosophical and spiritual modes of solace that are available from the resources of the culture at large.
Consider a Western analogue: Although Christian Science and Western medicine regard one another as incompatible, physicians nonetheless refer to the “Will of God” with impunity upon reaching the periphery of their clinical competence. Even the most academic hospitals, temples of biomedical technology, commonly include a chapel, in defence to beliefs in healing power derived from nonbiomedical interpretations of illness. With the emphasis on obeying the dictates of sensible behaviour (prajnaparadha) Caraka adds force to its advocacy of salutary habits.
This text indicates more of willingness to reinterpret traditional ideas about karma to serve the needs of the medical doctrine than the later texts of Ayurveda. Caraka argues against an external locus of control or supernatural etiology. Even where the text considers these factors, there is an emphasis on the present life and the individual’s ability to exert a significant degree of influences on his own well-being. In case of disease born of his own deeds (karman), the result of prajnaparadha, The wise man does not blame the Devas, Pitrs, or Raksasas. He should regard only himself as the cause of his unhappiness and misery; Therefore, he should keep to a salutary path and not falter (Car 2.7.21 – 22).
“… Although a concept of karma had been incorporated into Ayurveda from its earliest stages to explain the cause of otherwise incomprehensible illnesses, therapeutic failure and striking differences between parents and children, the zenith in the rising impact on the classical medical system of more traditional ideas in he extra – medical culture about karma is best represented in an obscure monograph surviving from the later middle ages.
Jnanabhaskara is a text consisting of a dialogue between Surya and his charioteer on the evils of human existence and a host of diseases, all attributed to karma.
Kris: In summary, pleasure and pain, health or disease, happiness and dissatisfaction, all are the effects of one’s own good and bad, skilled and unskilled actions. Skillful and unskillful (karmic) actions are not external phenomena. They belong essentially to the realm of mind. Making efforts to build up every possible kind of skillful karma and to put every vestige of unskillful karma away from us is the path to creating happiness and avoiding the creation of pain and suffering or various health conditions. For it is inevitable that a happy result follows a skillful and meritorious cause and that the consequence of building up unskillful causes is suffering.
Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we strive by every possible means to increase the quality and quantity of skillful actions and to make a corresponding paring down of our unskillful actions.
Q: What helps to clear karma, which is stored in the body?
Kris: All thoughts, words and actions which are aligned with purest life principles help to buffer old karmas. Good and loving thoughts counteract past ignorance, serving others and charity too clears karma, in fact any acts that are based on selfless goals clear past transgressions. Practicing meditation (entering no-mind zone) helps to clear karma, ‘fire’ of pranayama clears karma.
And for those who know it, Bio-Energy Shaking Yoga acts as super fast karmic vacuum cleaner. … Happy cleaning!